


Going Jack

by Tierfal



Category: Torchwood
Genre: Humor, M/M, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-02-20
Updated: 2010-02-20
Packaged: 2017-10-07 10:42:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 730
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/64358
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tierfal/pseuds/Tierfal
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Tosh's curiosity gets the better of her.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Going Jack

**Author's Note:**

> Written almost immediately after I'd finished watching Season 1, haha. XD

Tosh glances surreptitiously around, looking past the edges of her computer monitors, to make sure that they're alone. Only when she's positive that the Torchwood HQ is empty does she hiss, "Ianto!"

He looks up from where he's disentangling a horrifying knot of cords, which Owen has left there, because Owen doesn't seem to think there's anything wrong with electrical devices looking like a plate of spaghetti.

Tosh jerks her head vaguely in the direction of Jack's office. "You are, then?"

Ianto blinks at her prettily, his face entirely blank. "I am what?"

Tosh sets an elbow down on the desktop and props her chin on her hand, looking at him through half-lidded eyes to show how bored and distracted she is. "With Jack."

Ianto pauses—he has a gift for pausing in the middle of existing silences, a talent which has defied Tosh's covert attempts at mathematical categorization—and tilts his head. "'With' is an ambiguous preposit—"

Extremely meaningfully, Tosh raises her eyebrows.

You have to speak his language, is the thing.

Rewarding her efforts, Ianto smiles faintly, looking down at his work to free a particularly stubborn cord. "Once you go Jack," he says mildly, "you never go back."

Tosh is extremely glad she didn't choose that moment to take a sip of coffee.

Then again, choking on your own breath isn't too much more dignified than spitting coffee all over the keyboard, and it would have been one or the other.

"Is it—is he really—?"

Tosh should not be asking questions about her boss that she isn't _entirely_ sure she wants the answers to, but she can hardly help herself now that Ianto's gone and said _that_. Thinking about Jack and Ianto on Jack's bed—or on the floor—or on Jack's desk—or on _her_ desk—is enough to addle a girl's brains halfway to Kingdom Come.

As it stands, Ianto's outward innocence continues, completely unruffled and entirely faked. "It is; he is really. Can I get you more coffee, Tosh?"

"Fine on coffee," Tosh reports. "Low on details. Are you always this forthcoming, or am I just real lucky?"

Having worked another cable loose, Ianto begins to wind it around his palm and his elbow, up and down, over and over, the mechanical precision mesmerizing.

"One thing most people don't realize about Jack," he remarks, "is that he's extremely intelligent. If people realize that he's extremely intelligent, they only do so while forgetting how funny he is. Jack is a complicated man; he's a lot of things at once. If they somehow manage to reconcile the intelligence and the funniness, though, people tend not to see that he's entirely alone."

"He's not," Tosh blurts out. "He's got you."

The hint of a smile darting across Ianto's lips breeds deepening insinuations of happiness. Just once, Tosh thinks, she's like to hear Ianto laugh like a maniac.

"One other thing most people don't realize about Jack," he continues, unperturbedly, as if he hasn't heard, "is that he really likes peanut butter."

Tosh blinks at him, and Ianto blinks back.

He's always been a superlative blinker, and it shows.

"Well," Tosh says. "I didn't realize that."

Ianto nods reflectively, wrapping a plastic tie around the middle of the bundle of cables. "Little-known Jack Fact."

"You know a lot of Jack Facts?" Tosh asks, leaning forward despite herself.

Ianto offers her only a placid gaze. "Very many," he replies. "Number One-Thousand, Two-Hundred and Four is that he's going to be walking through the front door in a second and a half."

A second and a half is just enough time for Tosh to glance at the surveillance feed behind her, confirm that Ianto's right, and then flash a smile at the Captain as he saunters in, bearing a plastic bag with the corner store's logo. Squinting just a bit, Tosh swears she can make out a half-gallon of milk and a large jar of peanut butter.

"Evening, soldiers," Jack calls, swinging the bag as he heads for his office. "Can I borrow you for a minute, Ianto?"

He sweeps past them, all dim-sky-blue wool and blinding grin.

Ianto rises to his feet, touching Tosh's shoulder as he passes, ducking down by her ear, close enough to murmur, "Jack Fact Number Five—sometimes he keeps the coat on."

Tosh concludes that working late is actually counterproductive, on the whole.


End file.
